THE BEATRIX FARRAND SOCIETY NEWS 2019 Mountain laurel, with its showy pink flowers and glossy green foliage, is attractive in woodland gardens. This voucher was prepared by Marion Spaulding for the herbari- um at Reef Point. University & Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, voucher UC1066978 ITALIAN LESSONS: BEATRIX FARRAND IN DIANE KOSTIAL MCGUIRE (1933-2019) THE FOOTSTEPS OF AUNT EDITH WHARTON LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, SCHOLAR, MENTOR by CeCe Haydock by Judith B. Tankard DOROTHY WHITNEY STRAIGHT ELMHIRST PLANT PROFILE: MOUNTAIN LAUREL (1887-1968) (KALMIA LATIFOLIA) by Nick Opinsky by Matthew Wallhead DARTINGTON HALL, DEVON, ENGLAND BEATRIX FARRAND & GEORGE B. DORR: 2019 BEATRIX FARRAND SOCIETY THE INEVITABLE CONNECTION PROGRAMS by Ronald H. Epp ITALIAN LESSONS: BEATRIX FARRAND IN THE During her European tour, Farrand visited, measured, and wrote about many examples of classical gardens FOOTSTEPS OF AUNT EDITH WHARTON design. While her written prose never rivaled her aunt’s, her unpublished “Book of Gardening, 1893-1895” in- cludes thorough and thoughtful observation of gardens in and around Rome, Naples, Calabria, the Amalfi Coast, by CeCe Haydock Florence, Milan, and the Italian Lakes. Her citation of the plant material is keen, as was her commentary on the lack of design in certain gardens. “The garden was as usual a disappointment in the landscape gardening way, but some plants were interesting & some used in rather new ways.”(4) This experience greatly sharpened her ability to see, visualize, and critique elements of gardens that worked—and did not work. She also commented on the “Englishization” of various gardens, a phrase most likely borrowed from her aunt, who loathed the naturalistic gardening style. (On Villa Doria Pamphili, Wharton unloads: “but all this … was turned into an English park in the first half of the nineteenth century. One of the finest of Roman gardens fell a sacrifice to this senseless change.”)(5) One Roman house and garden, Palazzo Colonna, is described at length by Farrand and exemplifies her careful examination of a house and garden. With Edith (“P.W.” or Pussy Wharton, as noted in her journal) and we presume her mother, Farrand visited the interior one Saturday, describing in detail the palazzo, including its enormous decorated salon with marble floors. The following week, they returned “after a painful society morning in the American colony”(6) to visit the gardens. Farrand specifically mentioned entering the garden from the rear on Via del Quirinale. The grand Baroque entrance staircase was a double switchback set of steps, so similar to the same steps that her aunt Edith and architects designed at The Mount, demonstrating Wharton’s absorption and adoption of classical design features. Continuing through the garden, Farrand observed a central fountain, with Edith Wharton at Sainte-Claire du Chateau in France, ca1930. Beinecke Rare Book and its radiating paths. There was room for “good open space around the fountain,” allowing an area for people to sit, Manuscript Library, Yale University rest, and listen to the sound of the water. She noted that camellia bushes were placed in “inappropriate places” in one of the terraced parterres; that some of the terraces were in dilapidated condition; and that the vegetable garden “I remember long sunlit wanderings on the springy turf of great Roman villas … the liveliest hours was accompanied by weeds. Other specific observations noted an indentation in a retaining wall, which might were those spent with my nurse on the Monte Pincio …There we played, dodging in and out among old stone have housed a cistern or garden feature, and cited the typical Italian cypresses growing on a top terrace. Finally, benches, racing, rolling hoops, whirling through skipping ropes, or pausing out of breath …Those hours were she commented on the actual size of the hedging and the importance of siting in a garden, “with high box hedges the jolliest; yet deeper impressions were gathered in walks with my mother on the daisy-strewn lawns of the on either side of it, & a beautiful view of Rome over the right side.”(7) Villa Doria-Pamphili, among the statues and stone-pines of the Villa Borghese … What clung closest … when I Farrand’s attention to human use, details, maintenance, and plant placement all boded well for a successful thought of the lost Rome of my infancy? It is hard to say; perhaps simply the warm scent of the box hedges on career as a landscape architect. Use of individual details, such as a fountain with radiating paths, was a common the Pincian, and the texture of weather-worn sun-gilt stone.”(1) theme in many of her—and other designers’—classical gardens. Tall, columnar shrubs added important foliage What a descriptive, evocative passage by one of the great American writers, Edith Wharton. Her prolif- accents to her plant palettes, and interesting walls and staircases, such as those seen at Dumbarton Oaks in Wash- ic career as a fiction writer is well known. But her unusual ability both to write and to observe puts her at the ington, DC, provided pleasant passage on steep sites. forefront of Italian garden critics as well. Even today her book Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904) remains The friendship and collegial sharing of design and horticulture of Beatrix Farrand and her aunt Edith con- a scholarly resource on the subject. As only the second book in English on the subject, her book reawakened an tinued for the remainder of Wharton’s life, at both their residences. At The Mount, Farrand provided drawings for interest in the Italian style of garden design, which had been subjugated to the naturalistic and Victorian styles the entrance piers, a vegetable garden, and the long, woodsy driveway. The two women’s common belief that a for the past century. Her deep knowledge of classics and history, as well as her childhood living in Europe and female of their social status should and could think critically, as well as design or write creatively, contributed to her adult travels throughout the Continent, all contributed to her expertise in Italian gardens. a deep affection and respect between these two remarkable artists. Beatrix Farrand, the only female founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, was not only Wharton’s niece but also her close friend. They were only ten years apart in age, and they shared a deep love of books, knowledge, and gardens. During Farrand’s 1895 tour of Europe with her mother, Minnie Jones, NOTES she visited the major villas in and around Rome, recommended by Wharton. Wharton had traveled extensively 1. Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance (New York: Touchstone, 1998), Chapter 2, “Knee-High,” 2.2. in Italy and possessed a deep historic background of art, gardens, and villas. 2. Cynthia Zaitzevsky, “A Career in Bud: Beatrix Jones Farrand’s Education and Early Gardens,” Journal of the New England Garden In late March of 1895, a twenty-three-year-old Beatrix Jones arrived with her mother in Rome and joined History Society, 6 (Fall, 1998). Edith and her husband, Teddy Wharton. The mother-daughter couple had just embarked on Beatrix’s six-month 3. Judith B. Tankard, Beatrix Farrand: Public Gardens, Private Landscapes (New York: Monacelli Press, 2009), 18-19. “Grand Tour” of Europe. This was the second important step in Farrand’s education as a landscape gardener: for 4. Beatrix Farrand, “Book of Gardening, 1893-1895,” in The Collected Writings of Beatrix Farrand, ed. Carmen Pearson (Hanover, NH and London: University Press of New England, 2009), 40. the previous year, she had studied under Professor Charles Sargent of Boston’s Arnold Arboretum, where she 5. Edith Wharton, Italian Villas and their Gardens (New York: The Century Co., 1904), 120. learned botany, surveying, and horticulture.(2) Sargent, who recognized Farrand’s talent and love for plants, was 6. Farrand, “Book of Gardening, 1893-1895,” 24. an early supporter of women in landscaping, and he encouraged Farrand to visit Europe to understand further 7. Ibid. natural beauty and how nature and art could produce successful gardens.(3) With her aunt to guide her, she would further augment the training that led to her opening her professional office in 1896. She was surrounded by two Additional source: Hermione Lee, Edith Wharton (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). of the best teachers in their respective fields. BEATRIX FARRAND SOCIETY NEWS 2019 2 BEATRIX FARRAND SOCIETY NEWS 2019 3 DOROTHY WHITNEY STRAIGHT ELMHIRST (1887-1968) By Nick Opinsky Every day, in the gardens of the Dartington Hall Trust in Devon, England, locals, visitors, musicians and Through her activities at Cornell, Dorothy met her second husband, Leonard Knight Elmhirst, a Brit- artists alike enjoy the splendor of Beatrix Farrand’s and Dorothy Whitney Straight Elmhirst’s remarkable cre- ish-born Cornell agriculture student. In Leonard Dorothy found a partner who shared her belief in the transfor- ation. After a stroll through this spectacular place of refuge, one cannot help but feel connected to one’s self and mative power of education. Together they decided to establish an institution that would embody their philosophy what it means to be human. of living and learning through art and land. Once they were married, Leonard began the quest to find a suitable My great-grandmother, Dorothy Whitney Elmhirst (1887-1968), was an extraordinary pioneer and vision- site for their shared school. He was particularly keen on India, given that much of his worldview and philosophy ary of her time. The youngest child of William Collins Whitney and Flora (Payne) Whitney, Dorothy grew up had been shaped by his close friendship with Rabindranath Tagore. However, both Leonard and Dorothy agreed tremendously wealthy in a “palace of art” in New York City.